The present invention generally relates to the field of paper toweling and paper towel dispensers. More particularly, the invention is directed to a method of automatically attaching the ends of fan-folded paper towel stacks in a dispenser.
Paper towel dispensers are well known in the art as a convenient and sanitary way of providing a supply of towels in washroom and other facilities. By using a fan-folded stack of individual towel sheets, a number of problem encountered with a rolled web of toweling is avoided. For example, no inertial force must be overcome to start rotation of a roll and no arresting force is necessary to stop the rotation of the roll once it has begun. Thus, towels arranged in a fan-folded stack for dispensing does not have to have great physical strength which usually is inconsistent with the desired characteristics of softness, bulky feel and absorbency. Accordingly, such toweling does not require elaborate transfer mechanisms to facilitate dispensing.
Fan-folded towel dispensers usually are designed to receive a stack of toweling 1 as generally shown in FIG. 1. The leading edge of the bottom-most towel 2 in the stack is treaded through a dispensing opening within the dispenser case 3. Some fan-folded towel dispensers are designed with a simple feed wheel mechanism as illustrated by feed wheel 4 in FIG. 1 while other dispensers merely have an elongated opening at the bottom of the dispenser case. When the towel is grasped and pulled from the dispenser by a user, the fan-folded arrangement of the towel stack causes the leading edge of the next towel to be automatically drawn through the dispensing open for the next user. When the stack of towels is exhausted, a fresh stack is installed in the dispenser with the leading edge of its lower-most towel manually threaded through the dispensing opening.
The use of fan-folded stacks of toweling in a conventional dispenser is in most cases satisfactory except when the supply of towels is exhausted or the leading edge of the lower-most towel has not been properly threaded through the dispensing opening. The design of most dispensers makes it difficult to thread the leading edge of the lower-most towel through the dispenser opening without access to the inside of the dispenser.
Towel dispensers usually are designed with a lock which can only be opened by an attendant. While locking the dispenser serves a useful purpose in preventing pilferage and waste, the disadvantage is that the dispenser cannot be readily opened to replenish the towel supply or to properly thread the leading edge of the lower-most towel through the dispensing opening. Accordingly, toweling is not always available to the user when needed. Thus, the user becomes frustrated, especially since the most users only turn to the dispenser when in immediate need of a towel, e.g., to dry their hands. Placing free-standing stacks of toweling outside of the dispenser also is not a practical solution because to do so also invites pilferage and waste as well as leads to litter.
Frequent servicing of conventional fan-folded towel dispensers also is not a good solution due to the high labor cost involved. Servicing of the dispenser also involves two conflicting goals. The first is that the dispenser should be adequately stacked so that its supply of towels is not exhausted before the next service call. The second goal is to avoid waste of toweling. The first goal can be realized at the expense of the second goal by replacing partially used stacks with a fresh stack of towels. Discarding partially used stacks is not an economical alternative.